Ritesh Khandelwal, Chief Finance Officer, NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies
“I believe the budget 2022 is a fantastic take and the government has made it simple and effective. They have directly targeted the apex areas, keeping health and infrastructure in focus considering the effects of pandemics. With rapid digitalization, the taxation of cryptocurrency is another landmark achievement in this year’s budget, as previously digital currency has always been in the grey area.
Digital Rupee using Blockchain would also be an interesting change in the way transactions would take place going forward.
As leaders in the cloud infrastructure space, we at NxtGen Datacenters and Cloud Technologies, are very pleased with the declaration of Datacenters as part of the harmonized list of infrastructure. This listing gives us the benefit of working with bank-centered facilities. Earlier data centers were under IT/ ITES (IT Enabled Services), but by having them listed as infrastructure providers, we now have access to low-rate loans which is a straightforward benefit to the industry.
The only thing that lacked in this budget was the clarity on government stand and expenditure towards Smart Cities. The government has spent a lot of money and time on this project previously, therefore we were looking forward to get insights on it. Similarly, we were also expecting some clarity in the data localization policy.
All in all, we not only welcome budget 2022 but appreciate it as well.”
Prateek Kansal, Head of operations & engineering, Komprise
On tech market/economic growth:
The thriving global tech market has been fueling notable momentum to e-commerce and other platforms, enabling “made in India” to be successful. Many tech companies, startups and established businesses alike have leveraged technological advancement in fields of ML, AI and blockchain to help grow the overall economy and tackle the impact of the pandemic. The Government, along with medical /health providers, have extensively leveraged the latest capabilities, such as real-time data analysis, to help India emerge from the pandemic and return to a strong global position. It’s a fantastic time to be working in tech here in India!
On mental health initiatives:
The national tele mental health progamme is a welcome initiative. Times have been tough on everyone during the pandemic. This program will help people cope with the extended lockdowns, restrictions and isolation we’ve all experienced over the las two years. Komprise has taken a proactive stance by extending health benefits to our employees. We have recently reworked our leave policies to be very accommodating of employees, including offering extended paid time off for employees to take care of themselves and their families resulting from Covid-19. We continue to work hard at encouraging employees and their managers to regularly connect with team members in an effort to create a caring and compassionate support system for everyone while we work toward aggressive goals in 2022.
Lokesh Harjani, Founder & CEO – OnSpot Solutions
ECLGS scheme is a welcomed initiative and will help the MSME segment with their cash flows and help fuel growth for companies across segments. The interlinkage of government portals will help credit facilitation and enhance entrepreneurial growth for tenders and new business opportunities in a single reformed structure. This level playing field should yield a chance to start-ups and young companies registered as MSME to offer their products and services. Further integration of government portals will help ease the financial burdens with cleaner payment lines making payments more on time than in the past. This itself, will once again, help very important cash flows and credit lines of MSME companies. The extension of the 15% tax scheme for start-ups for an additional year, is of course, welcome. Additionally, the government has allowed public sector undertakings/government companies to accept surety bonds thereby making it easier for smaller companies to provide performance guarantees which may help in the bidding stipulations for tenders. This step should make competition thrive across different sized companies listed under MSME, especially those in start-up mode. The digital Rupee initiative may open up opportunities for the IT sector in the future.
Overall, the reforms inculcated in the budget is positive for the MSME segment, and hopefully it shall provide them with growth opportunities, and the government in the next budget can look for reforms and allocations of programmes for the MSME segment.
